UConn’s dominance and the challenges of repeating as national champion،
BOSTON — Shortly after the UConn Huskies brought down the nets in Houston last April, Dan Hurley started thinking about the 2023-24 season. And it was going to be a season unlike any Hurley had ever experienced, as coach of the defending national champion.
Naturally, he reached out to the last guy to win back-to-back national championships: Billy Donovan.
“He said, let’s not talk about it,” Hurley said. “Don't look for repetition. Get better in the offseason as a coach, serve your players well, stick to the formula. Don't look for achievement. Just do a great job…and let the chips fall there where they can. But don't obsess over this accomplishment, or it will drive you crazy.”
Hurley and UConn advanced to the Elite Eight and have the best chance to repeat as national champions since Donovan did it with the Florida Gators in 2006 and 2007. The Huskies are the first defending champions to advance past the Sweet 16 since the 2007 Gators and they're doing it in a more dominant fashion than last season.
Their 82-52 win over San Diego State on Thursday was the largest margin of victory in a Sweet 16 game since 2017, and they won their three NCAA Tournament games by an average of 28.7 points. They trailed for a total of 28 seconds and led by double digits for 58:27 of a possible 60 minutes in the second half.
Although the Huskies established themselves as title favorites from the start, they are aware of the less than successful history of the reigning national champions.
The last team to do this won it all…again 👀🏆#MarchMadness @UConnMBB pic.twitter.com/sNzhz5C5mt
– NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 29, 2024
“The way the defending champions have performed in recent history has been kind of against all odds in terms of the season we're having after the national championship,” Hurley said after Thursday's win.
“This team challenged what past champions did and took this program to a completely different level.”
UConn doesn't shy away from the spotlight.
“Throughout the year, we gave our best,” senior guard Hassan Diarra said a day earlier. “We walk with the confidence of being the No. 1 overall seed and we understand it’s a privilege to do so.”
“We have to go back up the mountain”
During the 2006-07 offseason, Donovan was looking for ways to send a clear message to his team, most of whom were returning, including all five starters: This season is a new season. This season is not last season.
He brought in famed sports sociologist Harry Edwards and former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, who won back-to-back Super Bowls in 2003 and 2004.
Edwards drew a mountain with a basketball on top.
“The sooner you realize the ball has gone back down the mountain and you start like everyone else, 0-0,” Donovan recalled Edwards saying. “The idea of defending national champions… You're not defending anything. You've already won this one. It's totally new.
“You have to go back up the mountain, guys. And you can't go back up the mountain the same way.”
Belichick, meanwhile, showed the team a horse race. He provided the history and statistics of each horse, jockeys and previous finishes. And as the horses entered the race, Belichick paused the race and asked a simple question: Which horse will win this race: the one wearing yellow, the one who won a big race, the one with a certain jockey ?
None of the above.
“He’s the fastest horse that runs,” Belichick said, according to Donovan. “Horses have no idea what's going on. You better put your head down and run the race.”
Nearly 20 years later, it still resonates with his former players.
“Coach Donovan kept us focused,” said Taurean Green, starter on Florida's two championship teams. “He would do a great job of bringing us back to reality and keeping us in the moment.”
“It put some things into perspective for these guys,” Donovan added. “They weren't afraid. They went for it.”
“It’s more mental fatigue than anything else”
On to the next one.#MixForSix | @keybank pic.twitter.com/CNk0SfINiv
— UConn Men's Basketball (@UConnMBB) March 29, 2024
UConn is not the first team to win a national championship and finds itself as the favorite to win it the following season. The Duke Blue Devils won a title in 2010 and were a 1 seed in 2011. The Villanova Wildcats won championships in 2016 and 2018 and were a 1 seed the year between those titles. Most recently, the Baylor Bears were a 1 seed last season after winning the 2021 championship and the Kansas Jayhawks were a 1 seed last season after winning it all in 2022.
But all four failed to meet back-to-back, with Duke being the only one of that group to bow out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
“A lot of it is mental fatigue,” former Villanova coach Jay Wright told ESPN. “Every game you play during the regular season, every game against the national champion. Even if there are new players on your team, they feel that pressure, they feel that it's their opponent's biggest game. “
Baylor coach Scott Drew had similar feelings about the difficulty of overcoming having every opponent circling around the game on their schedule.
“You have to do a lot of things to win a national championship,” Drew said. “It's hard enough to do it with the return of a team talented enough and on the same page enough to win it all, but also with everyone's best shot and the added pressure that comes with that. But above all , you” I have to stay injury-free and that is also difficult to do in today's match.
Donovan faced the same problems in the second season of the national championship. And it caught up with the Gators during the regular season, when they lost three of four SEC games, all on the road. He remembers opposing student sections entering the arena 90 minutes before games all season to yell and taunt his team.
“I had to change a lot of things,” he said. “It was the Super Bowl at our conference. I said, all these student sections are waiting for you – we won't come out. We won't come out for 30 minutes. They can sit there for an hour and a half. But warm up like you're ready to win this thing.
Maybe it was because Florida brought back all five starters from its first national championship team, but the Gators seemed to take some pride in being the enemy and having a target on their back.
We loved the challenges, man. We loved the pressure,” Green said. “We were competitive. We loved it. We had the 'us against the world' mentality. We thrived and we embraced it and we were never afraid of movement.”
“I see a difference in Connecticut”
1:57
How Dan Hurley got his players to join UConn
UConn coach Dan Hurley discusses his team's run through the NCAA tournaments so far and how he gets his players to adhere to his rigorous training.
So can UConn do it? Can the Huskies become the first team in nearly 20 years to win back-to-back national championships and further cement college basketball history?
Wright thinks so.
“What I see different in Connecticut is their depth,” he said. “I think the mental fatigue caught up to us during the tournament… Their depth can minimize that mental fatigue. Guys got injured during the year, and they seem mentally fresher to me than we were at that moment and they have more depth than us.”
This is a completely different team than a year ago, which has helped fuel some of that hunger. Gone are stars Adama Sanogo, Jordan Hawkins and Andre Jackson Jr., replaced by star transfer Cam Spencer and potential first-round picks Donovan Clingan and Stephon Castle.
“A lot of these old players came back wanting to do it again and help the new players experience a national championship,” Spencer said Thursday.
“If you're competitive, which I know very well at UConn, you're not going to relax mentally,” Wright said. “You’re going to take on every challenge throughout the regular season, which UConn did.”
Donovan pointed out one of the most telling statistics from his two championship teams: The Gators were 18-0 in playoff games in those two seasons, winning every game in the SEC and NCAA tournament. UConn won't make it — it lost in the Big East Tournament semifinals last season — but the Huskies have since won 12 straight playoff games, including the 2024 Big East Tournament championship, then dominated all three championships of this year's NCAA. tournament opponents.
Hurley spent almost a year making sure his team understood that last season's championship meant nothing to this year's team.
“We won't be able to trade that for anything tomorrow night against the team we played last year in the final, but we bring confidence,” he said before Thursday's game. “We believe in it. We believe we're supposed to win these games.”
What's left? A bit of history and a great heritage. And three other games.
“We have 'us,' guys,” Hurley said after Thursday's victory. “These guys are leaving a legacy right now in a place where it’s hard to leave a legacy.”
